Sherman Alexie spoke with Terry Gross about growing up surrounded by violence on a reservation, his traumatic childhood, and how brain surgery has changed him:
“It’s been, I guess, 19 months since surgery, and whenever I even ponder that question, as I am pondering it now, I start to cry. Waking up after surgery is the greatest moment of my life. It made me realize despite all the trauma, despite all my past and current mental illnesses, despite any pain that I have, that my life as I’ve constructed, as it has been constructed around me and for me, is something amazing, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful to be an indigenous man married to an indigenous woman with indigenous children in 21st-century United States. I am happy to be here, despite everything. That feeling has made me a slightly different person.”
Alexie’s new memoir is You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me.
Sherman Alexie Says He’s Been ‘Indian Du Jour’ For A ‘Very Long Day’